


A game of power

by crimsonepitaph



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt!Sam, Mild Language, with art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:19:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9697358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: A hunt forces Dean to make a choice that may have unbearable consequences.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note #1: This is written for the 2016 edition of SPN Reversebang. I was paired with the wonderful yuriookino, whose art drew me in from the first glance. It was a pleasure collaborating with her! Here is the gorgeous art, drop her some love!
> 
> Author's note #2: I am very grateful to borgmama1of5 for the beta. All of this would be ten times harder without her! Much love ♥

Darkness.  
  
Sam fights the darkness, an inch at a time. It’s dripping down the edges of his sight, encroaching over the world like a curtain.  
  
The world is Dean … Dean and a glimpse of the sky.  
  
It’s so close, Dean is so close. His hand is right next to Sam’s. But Sam is too far away, and inching further every second.  
  
Sam battles the inevitable. Challenges it, tries to come above it, struggles to harness abandoned powers by sheer will. He’s a master at fighting even when he knows there’s no chance in succeeding.  
  
The water...the water is a greater enemy than the one inside his head.  
  
Sam pounds on the transparent wall that separates him from his brother. His movements are slowed down, arrhythmic. His eyes are wide.  
  
Sam tries, he fights with himself to last one more minute, one more second. That tightness in his chest – that harrowing hollowness that fills with cement every time he tries to breathe ... that means something.  
  
That means he’s still alive.  
  
It doesn’t matter that he’s drowning. He resists it. The gift of fear is that it doesn’t need rationality. Sam truly believes he can still get out of this.  
  
Dean will get him out of this.  
  
He forgets where he is, he is back in hell, in the Cage.  
  
No air. No escape.  
  
Lucifer, his twisted mind, dismembering Sam piece by piece, holding Sam’s lungs in his hands, watching, again, until Sam gave up.  
  
But the eyes – not Lucifer’s – Dean’s –  
  
That’s here. Now.  
  
Sam tries to hang on to that.  
  
But the water isn’t as forgiving as Sam’s confused mind is. It surrounds him, slithers and works itself down his throat, expanding, first slowly, tentatively, like a warning, then Sam is desperate with the need for air and he gasps only to be choked with a rush of fluid that floods his chest and he can’t –  
  
Dean.  
  
Dean’s yelling.  
  
Far away, muffled, scared. Sam instinctively tries harder, fights to come back to that voice. A pain in his heart that Sam knows all too well. A part of Dean living in Sam, taking space just inside his ribcage.  
  
He can’t give in.  
  
But what follows is a question. A question he doesn’t want to ask. It makes him feel weak. He shouldn’t.  
  
Why?  
  
Why hold on?  
  
The end – the end should come sometimes. It should, even if not like this – it’s not fair, happening right before Dean’s eyes. Dean doesn’t deserve it. But … why not here, now?  
  
Sam tries to breathe one more time.  
  
He can’t.  
  
He doesn’t know if he closes his eyes.  
  
The world dulls. Even Dean’s screams … they’re getting lost.  
  
Dean …  
  
Sam wonders if he’ll see Dean on the other side of peace.

 


	2. Part Two

**PART TWO**  
  
 _48 HOURS EARLIER_  
  
“You know, Sam, it’s scientifically proven that having fun actually makes you live longer.”  
  
“I don’t think that applies to us. You’ve died about a hundred times, Dean.”  
  
Dean opens his mouth, tries to come up with a reply.  
  
He doesn’t find one. Once again, his attempts to reel Sam into playing along have failed miserably. Back at the motel Sam wouldn’t watch _South Park_ with him, because Sam throws a fit if you ask him to watch anything other than creepy documentaries about long-dead serial killers or wildebeests eating baby zebras.  
  
But sometimes trying to rope each other into something they’ll wind up enjoying anyway is half the fun.  
  
Right now though, Sam’s in the passenger seat poring over his laptop, entirely too preoccupied to grasp the awesomeness of Dean’s offer.  
  
The possible case they’re looking at – camping trip, two men dead, both drowned in the lake. The catch? Both guys were part of the same group, and they died within minutes of each other – but at opposite ends of the lake. Dean wonders aloud if the campers are just the unluckiest bunch of people on earth, Winchesters excluded, or if there was some supernatural hanky-panky involved.  
  
“I don’t get it,” Sam frowns. “There were two girls and two guys, girls were found separated but unscathed.”  
  
 “That kind of trip, you either go for the view or for the company,” Dean supplies, wheels already turning. “If it was two couples, why would all of them be wandering around alone?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam nods. “Exactly what I was thinking.”  
  
Dean has to admit that what Sam’s saying has value. He wasn’t too convinced there was a case here – still isn’t, but at least Sam dragging him out of his very comfortable bed and interrupting his TV binge might have a point after all.  
  
“You got their addresses?”  
  
Sam nods.  
  
“Which one first?”  
  
“Melanie. The girl whose boyfriend died in the lake first.”  
  
Dean side eyes his brother, tries to peek into the case file. “There a photo somewhere in that file?”  
  
Sam promptly levels the cover upright, shielding it from Dean’s eyes.  
  
“No, unlike you, I make my decisions purely on case-related criteria,” Sam shoots back, deadpan.  
  
Dean ignores that for the time being.  
  
“Yeah, so what’d you do? Toss a coin? Why Melanie?”  
  
It’s less that he’s curious, and more to pick on Sam’s annoying habit of mapping out plans A to F, and possibly G to K as well in his head, but skipping about a dozen steps when he’s explaining what he’s thinking to Dean. When Sam gets into the solve-the-case mood, he has about two and a half settings: silent research with a side of pursed lips and squinty eyes, or mile-a-minute expositions, or, if the case is proving too intractable, drunk.  
  
The latter should theoretically be the most fun. Except if Sam gets to that point, the shit has definitely hit the fan, and Dean has more pressing issues to deal with than to bask in the glory that is a drunk Sam.  
  
Damn, they should have a beer when this is over. Or whiskey. Something. Anything that doesn’t mean drinking for the dead or the world ending. Just to celebrate a case being done.  
  
“Dean?”  
  
Sam’s voice brings him back to the present.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“You even listening to me?”  
  
“Of course,” Dean lies smoothly, “you want to see Melanie first because her boyfriend was a Boy Scout. Literally.”  
  
Sam looks appropriately rebuked for assuming Dean’s inattention. Dean won’t ruin the moment by telling his brother that he just made a lucky guess.  
  
Sam’s always had a problem with things that don’t make sense.  
  
Sam doesn’t yet understand that’s half the fun for Dean, not knowing but making it up as he goes along.  
  
The adrenaline.  
  
Dean’s still working on educating Sam about that.     
  
  


~

 

 

The house isn’t a house. It’s a freaking mansion. Melanie Park, twenty eight, former CEO of some bigshot internet company, retired to the countryside with the millions made in the sell-out.  
  
Dean eyes the perfectly trimmed lawn and the carefully maintained rose plants surrounding the massive house. He doesn’t know if he should question the girl’s life decisions or pull up a chair and take notes while she talks.  
  
“I bet there’s a butler,” Dean muses out loud.  
  
Sam snickers.  
  
They ring the bell, Sam already embodying his victim-whisperer persona, while Dean adjusts the belt in his suit pants.  
  
He had to borrow one from Sam, and the giant freak might be ten feet tall, but he has a waist like a cover girl from the 50’s. And knows that belts come in _sizes_ , and actually buys the appropriate one.  
  
 “Hello,” a voice interrupts his random train of thought.  
  
Dean redirects his gaze towards the woman in front of them. Melanie Park: petite, with dark circles under her eyes, and an expression that says seeing them is the last things she needs right now.  
  
Dean’s sympathetic, but if there’s a case, he and Sam need to find out the specifics to get anything done.  
  
“Agents Jones and Blackmore, FBI,” Dean introduces them with a flash of the badge and a nod. “We’re here to ask you a few questions about your boyfriend’s death.”  
  
There’s a flicker in her blue eyes – fear. But she covers up quickly, making room for Sam and Dean to enter the house.  
  
First thought in Dean’s head – whoa.  
  
The second, somewhat more coherent, is that it’s really freaking expensive. The hallway – dark mahogany flooring, white walls, hints of cream and amber in the carpet on the stairs. Colorful, abstract paintings on the way to the study, messes of lines and points that remind Dean of the crime scene of Sparkles the manicorn’s death.  
  
The study is immense – but only bookshelves, all around, enough books to give Sam a hard-on. Close to the window there’s a couch, one of those fancy ones that Dean’s pretty sure isn’t called ‘couch’, but some French name he can’t pronounce. Across from it, an armchair, which is where Melanie alights, leaving the too-small piece of leather for him and Sam.  
  
Melanie doesn’t offer tea, a drink, or, for that matter, a word. She waits. She looks in their direction – but Dean can tell she’s not seeing them.  
  
It never gets easier, seeing someone who looks so lost. But that’s their job. So Dean focuses, tunes into the conversation Sam’s started.  
  
“… tell us what happened, Ms. Park?”  
  
“It’s Melanie. Um – I thought I told all of this to the police. ”  
  
Dean doesn’t need Groundhog Day to know Sam’s reply.  
  
“We’re just double-checking, Ms. Park. We want to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”  
  
The woman curls in on herself, makes herself small with gestures that don’t escape Sam and Dean’s practiced eye. The way she plays with the edges of her green sweater sleeves, the way she scuffs her feet ever so slightly on the carpet.  
  
“Okay. Well,” she begins, voice unsure, “Kent had two weeks off – ”  
  
“Sorry,” Sam interrupts, looking almost pained for having to do it. “Kent – your boyfriend?”  
  
She nods.  
  
“Fiancé, really ...”  
  
Her voice breaks.  Sam shifts, leans in, waits for her to recover.  “He proposed right before we went on the trip.”  
  
Well, shit. Dean’s hopeful theory of lovers’ spat leading to murder just got shot down.  
  
“Anyway – Joan and Danny –our friends,” she explains before Sam asks, “They live in town. They knew about Kent – about him proposing, so it was going to be something special.”  
  
It’s Dean’s turn to cut in. “Joan and Danny – you were good friends?”  
  
“No. I mean – Joan and me, yes. I didn’t really know Danny, just as Joan’s husband. But he seems … seemed …  like a good guy, Joan really loved him. Joan and I – we’ve been best friends since high school. This whole trip was to catch up … “  
  
She stops, tears trickling down her cheeks with her last words.  
  
“I’m sorry –“  
  
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” human-dispenser-of-emotional-comfort Sam quickly assures.  
  
“I just – I have trouble believing this is all really happening. It was – it was a camping trip. It was just – I don’t really understand how ...” she trails off, no words to be said.  
  
There are none. Just a courtesy nod, a sympathetic look that’s absolutely useless in the circumstances.  
  
Dean tries to get the conversation on the right track.  
  
“Ms. Park – your fiancé … was he the outdoors type?”  
  
Surprisingly, that prompts a small smile out of her.  
  
“He was … he really was. Kent loved it, being in nature ... doing his own stuff, he said. When we first met, I was working, day in, day out – sometimes I think I even slept at the office. But Kent … he’d come, he’d literally drag me kicking and screaming into the car, and he’d drive. He’d just … drive. Sometimes we’d go to his cabin for a few days. Occasionally it was a camping trip, like this was, but those we had to plan beforehand. More often than not, it was a challenging hike to get all the energy out.”  
  
She pauses, raises her gaze, meets Dean’s.  
  
“Kent, he wasn’t the daredevil type. On the contrary, he always came prepared. He knew where we were going, what we needed – he was actually kind of obsessive about it.”  
  
Dean purses his lips. “So what happened this time?”  
  
Melanie shrugs, a half-hearted gesture that gets lost in the armchair.  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“You can’t explain it?” Sam supplies.  
  
“No,” she shakes her head. “I don’t remember.”  
  
“But the incident report says you were the one that found him.”  
  
She looks at Dean again, searching for something. He doesn’t understand. It makes him uncomfortable.  
  
It’s long seconds until she speaks again.  
  
“I remember touching him. I remember that he was cold. I remember light, blinding light in my eyes. And, after that, just waking up in the hospital.”  
  
The case file says that they found her crying over his body, close to the lake. Dean wonders if it’s just the trauma that blanks out the spaces.  
  
Otherwise … who would have gotten him out of the water?  
  
 _How_ would he have gotten out?  
  
She looks so small. So … Dean, as hard as he tries to imagine it, can’t. He’s seen the pictures – guy was easily as tall as him. Probably more muscle, too.  
  
Sam’s empathy-infused tone cuts in through Dean’s thoughts. “And Joan and Danny? Where were they during this time?”  
  
“I – I really don’t remember, Agent. I don’t –“  
  
“It’s okay,” Dean hears himself saying. “Is there anything else you can share with us? Anything that comes to mind from the trip?”  
  
“The first day – it’s clear. I remember everything. We spent all day setting up the tents, and in the evening we were too tired to do anything else but sit, and talk. Laugh …” she says, her eyes glimmering, “… having a good time, around a fire, and without a care in the world for a few hours.”  
  
Dean nods.  
  
She’s someone whose world just came apart.  
  
Sam’s rubbing his hand on his chin, leaning forward – classic Sam when he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how to put it delicately.  
  
Dean stands up.  
  
“Okay, well, I think we got everything we need, Ms. Park,” he tells Melanie, trying to look her straight in the eyes.  
  
It’s weird. He has this feeling –  
  
Niggling. Indistinct. He can’t make it out exactly.  
  
Sam follows with the usual FBI spiel of leaving her a fake card, but a real number  to call if she remembers anything more.  
  
Melanie seems relieved to see them leaving.  
  
When Sam abruptly stops, turns around in the hallway, Dean catches a desperate look in her eyes.  
  
“Just one more thing,” Sam asks, nodding at Dean’s questioning look, “Ms. Park, can you please show me the spot where you set up your tents?”  
  
He fishes his phone out of his pocket, quickly googles a map.  
  
Good thinking.  
  
Even if the location is mentioned in the report, Melanie could let slip some valuable details about the itinerary of their trip.  
  
But she shakes her head.  
  
“I don’t …”  she stammers, “I don’t know the area well. But – wait here.”  
  
Sam and Dean to watch as she moves swiftly towards an adjacent room.  
  
She comes back with a map.  
  
Paper, real, old-time map, with circles and lines drawn in marker.  
  
Kent was a man after Dean’s heart.  
  
“Here,” Melanie says, handing the map to Sam. “The police gave it back to me along with everything else. Told you Kent was careful with this stuff. He wasn’t a big fan of phones or anything else electronic, not on these trips, anyway.”  
  
“Thank you,” Sam replies.  
  
Dean thinks about his own question, then decides, what the hell, can’t hurt, and goes with his gut.  
  
“Ms. Parks, is there anything else you saw that night? Maybe something you’re not really sure you actually saw?”  
  
She stares at him. Dean wills her to trust them.  
  
But there was something. Something in her eyes. She saw – there’s more to it than she told them.  
  
She takes a shaky breath, and speaks so softly Dean can barely hear her.  
  
“Okay – uh. There was a woman … a blonde woman. I think – I don’t – I must have been hallucinating. Because I saw the lake … frozen. Which is impossible – it was sixty degrees _._ She was standing on the lake – on the ice, and she was looking down…I went to see what she was looking at – and Kent. It was Kent. Under the ice. He was pounding on it with his hands and she was standing on top of him. I think - she –  “  
  
 _She killed him_.  
  
Yeah. Dean gets _that_.  
  
But Melanie…she looks like she’s done. That was a last effort – and it took too much. All of it, it’s too raw. Dean doesn’t need any more words to understand the look in her eyes.  
  
 _Get out_.  
  
They do, with more questions that they came in with, as usual.  
  
  
  


~

 

Next stop is food, because Dean needs to eat, and Sam needs a flat surface for his computer.  
  
“Burgers good?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Dean nods, makes a sign for the waitress. He rattles off the order, special snowflake veggie burger for Sam, ton of meat for him, the usual.  
  
The waitress – _Caitlin_ , her name tag says – listens carefully, writes everything down meticulously.  As she turns away, she smiles, the kind of smile that Dean knows could turn into a promise.  
  
It’s a very tempting idea, but –  
  
Sam. The case.  
  
“So, you got something?” Dean asks, trying to will this situation into something concrete.  
  
Something he can kill.  
  
Sam raises his head above the screen of his laptop, takes a second to focus on Dean. “Huh – oh, yeah.”  
  
“Share with the class?”  
  
“Right,” Sam nods, turning the laptop so Dean can see. “So, get this – the place where Melanie’s boyfriend died? The lake and the surroundings? There were about six other deaths there.”  
  
“ _About?”_  
  
Even by Winchester world standards, the number of deaths should be fixed.  
  
“Well, there are two other unsolved disappearances, a teenage girl and a forest ranger.”  
  
“And?”  
  
Sam purses his lips.  
  
“And they found some bones at the edge of the lake, washed over. _Human_. But –“ Sam stops, trying to phrase it appropriately in his head, even though Dean can guess what’s coming, “but they couldn’t make a positive ID for either of them.”  
  
“Jesus.”  
  
“Yeah … well, at least if there was some pattern to it, to the killings or disappearances – but nothing. All it says here is that it’s a dangerous area.”  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow, pulls the laptop towards him. “And you think that’s code for our kind of thing.”  
  
“I think it’s worth checking,” Sam shrugs.  
  
And Dean can’t argue with that. So he turns to look at the page that just opened, gives Sam a chance to eat, hopes to have more luck.  
  
He scans over the dates of the deaths and disappearances.  
  
 _1962, 1990, 1991, 2005, 2008, 2008._  
  
No pattern.  
  
Cause of death, then.  
  
 _Drowning. Strike of lightning. Drowning. Natural causes, wrong place, wrong time. Slip and fall. Drowning._  
  
Well, drowning jumps out, but – on the other hand, it’s a lake, a large and deep one, at that. There’s bound to be idiots that test it out.  
  
Maybe victim type has a clue.  
  
 _Girl. Two guys. Woman. Older man._  
  
 _One tourist, five locals._  
  
Yeah.  
  
Nope, he has nothing.  
  
Sometimes, something will sing out at him. A detail, an outlier that Sam misses because of overthinking and forgetting to just follow his instinct.  
  
But this – right now, this makes no sense to Dean, either.  
  
He raises his gaze, meets Sam’s. “So the only things these have in common is the place?”  
  
“Yeah – uh, thank you,” Sam replies, pausing to address the arrival of the waitress at the table.  
  
“Can I get you anything else? A drink?”  
  
“No, thanks, we’re good.”  
  
Sam’s registered trademark polite smile and Dean’s suggestive looks make a good team, and Caitlin leaves with a smile and a wink thrown over her shoulder.  
  
Well. It’s the little things.  
  
“Dean?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“The place?”  
  
Dean looks at Sam.  
  
“Right.”  
  
He places his hands on the keyboard, starts typing. He catches a glimpse of Sam half-smiling, and with that look on his face – that look Dean doesn’t know what to do with.  
  
“Okay, so, says here,” Dean begins, clearing his throat, “Place is just – a lake. With forest surrounding. Like, as in – never been anything else. The town limits never extended further than they are now.”  
  
“Native American history?”  
  
Dean refocuses his search, scans the last paragraph of the page with the town history.  
  
“Nope,” he answers after a few seconds. “Nothing. Town is actually pretty new, too. Hundred years or so. Looks like all it’s ever been is a nice spot with a pretty view.”  
  
Sam raises an eyebrow.  
  
“The lake?”  
  
Dean nods. “There’s a few pictures here,” he tells Sam, repositioning the screen between them. “Now I get why Melanie and her friends picked it.”  
  
It’s a pretty cool place, evil stuff happening there not considered, Dean thinks.  
  
Green, all green around. Dark green of the forest far away, and, closer and sharper, grass hit by sunlight. The lake is downward from where all the pictures are taken – a large dark blue canvas that stretches to the horizon.  
  
“Huh.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “Hey – speaking of Melanie and the group, the girl, the other one –“  
  
“Joan – “  
  
“Did you find something on her?”  
  
Sam shakes his head, digging into his burger. “No. I mean – they’re clean. All of them. At least on paper – I got nothing.”  
  
“So, we go and talk to her.”  
  
Sam nods. “That’s what I was thinking – after we eat.”  
  
Sam’s words are thrown around a smile, clear sign that Dean got his order right. _Very_ right.  
  
It’s easy, going from there. Sliding into another slice of normal. Into comfortable. Into pointless discussions about the food and the other diners they’ve spent their lives in.  
  
Times like these … it’s so easy.  
  
  


~

 

The road stretches, unfolds with the echoes of the rumbling engine.  
  
 _Thunderstruck_ is on the radio.  
  
Dean refrains from singing out loud – Sam’s on the phone. He contents himself with drumming his fingers on the wheel, sinking his teeth into his lower lip and pretending he’s at an AC/DC concert in the first row.  
  
Stomach full, Dean’s degree of happy increases twofold.  
  
“So?” he asks when Sam finishes the call.  
  
His brother shakes his head.  
  
“Joan’s been missing since this morning. Her brother called the sheriff, said they couldn’t find Joan anywhere.”  
  
“And she’s not just out on a milk run or something?”  
  
Sam throws a look at Dean.  
  
“What? It’s a valid question.”  
  
“No, she isn’t on a milk run, Dean,” Sam explains with that tone that drives Dean crazy in the same measure as he finds it amusing. “Her family found her bed unmade. And her car’s gone. They’re afraid she … well, that the grief of losing her husband was too much.”  
  
“Maybe she’s just gone to be alone somewhere.”  
  
Sam’s lips curve into a thin line.  
  
“I wonder –“  
  
At this point, Dean’s set to go with it. They’re here, it looks like there’s a case, they might as well try all avenues.  
  
He glances at Sam. “What?”  
  
“Maybe she went back to the lake. To the spot where her husband died.”  
  
Possible. The state of mind she would be in – a visit to where it all happened might seem like a good idea. Maybe, if this really is a case and some weird shit happened, she’s trying to understand it.  
  
God knows, people react to trauma differently.  
  
Some drink, some cry, some fight back … some just need an explanation for it.  
  
After a few seconds of ruminating on Sam’s theory, Dean decides he agrees with it – or, at least, that it’s their best bet. It’s not like they would know where to start looking for her elsewhere.  
  
That settled, his thoughts ripple into technical specificities.  
  
“How long till we’re there?”  
  
“An hour, maybe a bit more.”  
  
“The road?”  
  
As in, can he drive up to the lake? Dean needs to prepare mentally if there’s physical exercise in the form of hiking in his immediate future.  
  
As an answer to his question, Sam launches into a long explanation about side roads, soil and weather conditions in the past few years.  
  
All Dean gets from it is that he needs to walk two and a half miles on abrupt terrain. _Ascending_ abrupt terrain.  
  
And then, probably, confront some two-headed, evil monstrosity.  
  
Today is turning out great.  
  
  
  


~

“Shit.”  
  
Sam stops, turns around. Fuck, Dean didn’t mean for Sam to hear that.  
.  
“You need help?”  
  
He’s sincere … he’s so freaking sincere it makes Dean want to punch him. His brother – his ten foot tall, freakishly long-legged brother – of course he has no problem climbing this. He’s a freaking mountain goat, clambers over the jagged terrain like it’s nothing.  
  
Meanwhile, Dean has to do it in steps, find alternative routes when the incline’s too steep, keep a lookout for anything suspicious, and _breathe_.  
  
All at the same time.  
  
It’s hard.  
  
“I’m fine,” he says, batting Sam’s hand away.  
  
Of course he’s not. He kind of feels like he’s going to have a heart attack.  
  
“Dean –“  
  
“Are we there yet?”  
  
Sam’s smug smile is answer enough.  
  
“Told you you should come with me on my morning runs.”  
  
Dean wisely chooses to conserve energy by not replying with the words he has in mind.  
  
Instead he focuses on finding the spot to place his feet. The next tree. The signs that they’re on the right trail. It’s easier than looking up, where he sees no end to it … which was fine. About two miles ago.  
  
The trail didn’t even seem that bad. It was a steep climb, yeah, but, otherwise, not the worst thing they’ve ever done.  
  
But, an hour in … different story.  
  
“We’re almost there,” Sam ever-so-helpfully offers.  
  
“I swear, Sam – I told you I’m fine, I don’t need any –“  
  
But Dean stops, because Sam – well, Sam wasn’t being a dickhead. In front of him, about thirty, forty feet away, there’s an opening where the trail begins to descend, enough show a sneak peek at a pamorama of liquid ultramarine, faded and shaded at the edges by the overcast sky.  
  
Sam’s gone ahead, and he’s almost there – except he leans in on one of the trees when he tries to leap over a root protruding from the soil, and he loses his balance.  
  
“Fine,” Sam shouts without Dean asking, picking himself up.  
  
He didn’t exactly fall – just kind of bent over, supported himself on his hands.  
  
Dean grins.  
  
“See what overachieving gets you, Sammy?”  
  
He’s almost reached Sam, jumpstarted by the sight of the finish line. He’s just in time to catch Sam’s scowl.  
  
“Oh, shut up.”  
  
Dean does, albeit snickering. He switches focus to the view ahead.  
  
It’s a beautiful sight – the pictures don’t do it justice. The green of the forest is almost dark blue now … yielding to soft black, an illusion of the stretching water and the fading daylight.  
  
They take a few more careful steps – downhill is easier, but now there are patches of grass that trick Dean, slide under his boots easily and force him to flap his arms to maintain his equilibrium.  
  
Finally – a plateau.  
  
A few more feet, and a blessed line of level ground.  
  
And a silhouette. Just at the edge of the lake, becoming clearer with every step forward. Yellow coat, red hair.  
  
A woman.  
  
“Joan?” Dean asks, without preamble. His right hand goes to his back instinctively, reaching for his gun.  
  
Sam’s gestures mirror his.  
  
She startles, turns at hearing Dean’s voice – but Dean doesn’t get to explain, doesn’t get to introduce himself, because the next thing out of her mouth is –  
  
“Run!”  
  
It’s not a scream, just a small voice, breaking, desperation in every syllable.  
  
“What the –“  
  
“Dean!”  
  
That’s Sam’s voice. Sam, who’s pointing at the figure appearing out of thin air.  
  
Literally.  
  
Like dust rising, or a sand storm – except … it’s clear. Dean can see, piece by piece, the outline of a human body building itself in front of him.  
  
The scattered fragments lift, attach themselves swiftly to the whole, achieve solidity –  
  
A face.  
  
It’s a woman. Tall, lean. Blonde hair. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, which looks wrong on so many levels, given the way she’s just materialized in front of them.  
  
She’s smiling, a thin curve of pale lips that doesn’t betray any surprise at their arrival.  
  
“Welcome,” she says, none too warmly.  
  
In her defense, Sam and Dean’s pointed guns don’t make for a good first impression, either.  
  
Dean’s still processing the whole thing. Sam looks equally confused, adjusting the grip of his gun like he’s not sure it’s the right weapon to be using now.  
  
Frankly, the only one who seems okay with this is the one who should actually be freaking out, on account of not being a seasoned hunter, and all – namely, Joan.  
  
Dean’s quick scan of the civilian is derailed by the creature’s voice, surprisingly soft.  
  
“It is customary to welcome guest in one’s territory, is it not?”  
  
“Your territory,” Sam repeats, wheels already in motion.  
  
The woman takes a few steps forward, opens her mouth to speak – but Sam’s on guard – he tightens his grip on the gun, finger stroking the trigger.  
  
The creature stops, laughs.  
  
“Please do shoot me … if only so I can see the look on your faces when I come back.”  
  
Dean’s more than open to trying.  
  
But Sam has other plans.  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
 _What_ , Sam.  
  
“I will tell you if you hold your tongues.”  
  
Sam nods, because, yeah, why not keep up the appearance that they actually have any control over what’s happening.  
  
“I am Menehit, goddess of the Earth and Sun.”  
  
Dean has a lot to say about that. But he doesn’t get to voice any of his thoughts, because Joan interrupts.  
  
“She is. The goddess of Earth and whatnot. Researched it, found proof and all.”  
  
Sam’s voice cuts through, expressing all the confusion Dean feels right now.  
  
“… proof?”  
  
Joan nods while the creature – the goddess – watches, satisfied.  
  
“Before any humans were here, there was a battle among gods at this lake. She –“ Joan makes a gesture towards Menehit, “she’s supposed to be in bits and pieces, scattered all around this ground. But –“  
  
Menehit interrupts.“ But human incompetence knows no bounds.”  
  
Dean agrees, though he’s not entirely sure with what.  
  
Menehit continues Joan’s story.  
  
“Ancient markings, trapped for millennia … and all it took was one human, too much curiosity, and a few scratches on a tree scraped off.”  
  
“And, what, you’re not dead now?” Dean asks.  
  
This whole thing feels suspiciously like a battle they’ve fought before.  
  
But, hey, it’s not like they don’t deserve a lifetime achievement award for being in over their heads.  
  
“No, I am very much alive … or, will be, after I’m finished.”  
  
“Are you really going to make me ask?”  
  
Menehit smiles.  
  
“You are brave,” she tells Dean. “But him …” she says, tilting her head towards Sam. “Yes, it is going to be him … he has something you don’t have. He has _magic_.”  
  
Dean throws Sam a look.  
  
What the hell?  
  
On multiple counts.  
  
Sam chooses that moment to become expressionless.  
  
Menehit walks forward. “You did not think – you did not think I would know?” she asks Sam. “You touched me – you touched my trees, my earth … did you not know, I would feel everything? _Everything_ deep inside you, that you hide … I can feel that. Your blood, your arms … remnants of magic.”  
  
She stands there, barrel of Sam’s gun stroking her skin, digging into her chest.  
  
Sam’s finger lingers on the trigger.  
  
There’s this twist of Sam's lips – Dean knows it. All too well, unfortunately.  
  
“Get back,” Dean warns the goddess.  
  
“Or what?”  
  
“I’ll shoot.”  
  
She smirks. “I do not think you will. But I am going to do this, instead.”  
  
She flings her right arm – a gesture that takes Dean by surprise.  
  
He shoots.  
  
A second too late. There’s a blur of color, then sound. She’s gone.  
  
So is Sam.  
  
Dean spins toward the lake in time to see Sam hitting the water from ten feet above.  
  
“SAM!”  
  
He starts to run.  
  
But there’s no time.  
  
It’s a few hundred feet, but there’s no time, because the creature’s already at the edge of the lake, hands in the water, spilling words that Dean would give anything to stop.  
  
He can’t.  
  
He can’t even try a shot again. She’s smart. She’s put Joan between Dean and herself as a shield.  
  
Seconds. That’s all it takes for Dean to get to her – but it’s too long.  
  
When he does shoot, as Menehit dissolves into fragments – it’s too late.  
  
Water ripples from the shore toward the center of the lake, infinitely small waves that crystallize as they travel.  
  
Ice.  
  
 _Sam_.  
  
Dean runs.  
  


 

~

 

“Sam! SAM!”  
  
Dean yells at the top of his lungs, a sound that should break the ice beneath him, the few inches that separate him from Sam.  
  
It’s just a few fucking inches, and his brother is dying under it, and he can’t do anything.  
  
Just yell. Will Sam into staying alive.  
  
 _Please, Sam. Please._  
  
His brother looks at him, cobwebs in his eyes, hands scratching at the surface.  
  
Dean turns his anger on the one doing this.  
  
 “Undo it! Now!”  
  
She laughs.  
  
“No, I do not think I will do that.”  
  
Dean searches for an answer.  
  
 _Something. Anything. Think, Dean, think._  
  
“Why? Why are you doing this?”  
  
“To find my way back. To live.”  
  
“What’s that got to do with my brother?!”  
  
 _Sam, who’s drowning. Dying. He’s dying on you again, Dean. You can’t do anything._  
  
“He has magic in him.”  
  
Demon blood. Maybe the trials. All of it, even if it isn’t there anymore, left marks.  
  
Dean’s thoughts race. His hand rests against the ice, mirrored against his brother’s.  
  
He needs to do something. He pounds on the ice with the butt of his gun, but the surface doesn’t even chip. All it does is add to Dean’s frustration and panic.  
  
“All the humans … the humans I’ve chosen – they have all been special. They each gave me a gift.”  
  
“ _Gift –“_  
  
“Flesh and blood,” another voice cuts in. “Soul. Heart. Will.”  
  
It’s Joan.  
  
“You need something from me, too,” she tells Menehit, as Dean tears his eyes from Sam’s struggle for a moment to see Joan’s tear-streaked face twisted in fear and grief. “You took from my husband. You took from my father. And now...this place is calling to me … it tells me to come here again. Every night since it happened. There’s a part of me that I left behind twenty years ago. So take me. Take me instead.”  
  
Menehit looks at her in surprise.  
  
“You offer yourself for a stranger?”  
  
 “No. For me. You killed my husband. You killed my father. You have something of them. At least you can let me be part of that.”  
  
Dean doesn’t even try to figure out what Joan’s talking about.  
  
Seconds press on him as he sees Sam’s struggles slowing.  
  
 _No. It can’t. It’s not happening._  
  
“He will choose.”  
  
Dean makes an effort to tune back in.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Choose, Dean,” Menehit orders. “Choose between this girl who offered her life,” she says, pointing at Joan, “or your brother.”  
  
Dean stops.  
  
He balls his hands into fists, grips so tight he draws blood with his fingernails, but it doesn’t matter.  
  
Time is compressed to the desperation, to the panic, to the need.  
  
He doesn’t even need to think.  
  
It’s easy.  
  
 _It’s Sam. It’s always been him._  
  
And Dean – Dean is lost.  
  
If he had time – there has to be another way. There is.  
  
But what there isn't, is time.  
  
Joan’s face. Desperate, and broken. Dean doesn’t understand. She seems so sure. So sure she wants this, so sure Dean will sacrifice her life for his brother’s.  
  
Hell, this all might all just be for fun, and they’re all getting a ticket to the bottom of the lake anyway.  
  
 _Sam. It’s for Sam. It doesn’t – it’s Sam. Come on, Dean, not like you ever got a clean start. Hell’s still on you, blood and guts._  
  
“Come on, come on,” the goddess baits, “You’re running out of time.”  
  
Dean can’t.  
  
Of all the things he’s done, he doesn’t know if he can do _this_. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to give that last piece of himself away.  
  
But it’s Sam.  
  
Sam is on the other side of the ice.  
  
And he’s stopped moving.  
  
 _Come on, Dean._  
  
 _Choose._  
  
“Tell me, now.”  
  
 _An innocent civilian or Sam._


	3. Epilogue

The white lines on the road stretch before Dean’s eyes.

There’s a song on the radio. Dean doesn’t recognize it. He turns down the volume, glances at the empty passenger seat.

_Take me. Take me instead._

A cruel laugh is playing in his head. He sees his hands, skin angry red, nails broken from scratching at the ice.

All pointless.

“What time’s it?”

The voice is groggy, befuddled. Dean sees Sam’s moving form in the rearview mirror. He forces himself to smile.

He tries to go for normal, ignoring the fact that they’re way past that.

“How you doing back there?”

His question is met with silence.

Sam just sits up, arranges his clothes, and pointedly avoids looking at Dean.

“Sam –“

It’s Dean who speaks first, but Sam who interrupts him.

“Don’t, Dean. I know. You did what you had to.”

Dean hadn’t. Not really.

But Joan …

She shouldn’t have been willing to offer.

Dean understands it. She was alone. She was lost. She didn’t know what else was there to do, she wanted to be with her husband and father. Her family.

Dean checked the records – one of the victims was Joan’s dad. Died during a hike with his daughter. Joan, by all accounts, wasn’t the same after that.

And Menehit had taken her. Killed her right under Dean’s eyes. Just a touch.

Then he was back on the shore, his hands on Sam’s chest, pushing water from his brother’s lungs.

“Dean …”

Dean wills himself back to the present. It’s hard. The creature’s last words still sound in his mind.

_Her gift to me is her soul … the strength of her sacrifice. But don’t worry, I will see you two again._

“Yeah,” Dean replies, voice rough.

“The voice in my head –“

“I know.”

Sam’s voice breaks. “This feeling – I –“

Dean knows.

Dean knows all too well why they were let go.

It’s because they have no choice but to return, to find their way there again.

It’s a waiting game, and the other side has an advantage of millennia.

_There’s parts of me I left behind. This place … this place was calling to me._

But when they return next time, they’ll be ready.

THE END


End file.
